That thing, you know, under a star destroyer...

I've always wondered what exactly this is.

There's lots of discussions about star destroyers that I could find OTI. But they're all about how it'd fare against the Enterprise or whether the globes on the bridge are sensors or shields.

I can't seem to find anything about this semi-spherical thing underneath. I've always wondered what exactly it does. The rest of the ship layout seems sensible and functional barring what you think of those globes, but this stands out as a big ??? for me.

Well, in the SW: Battlefront 2 PC game, it is the center of life support for the Star Destroyer, but it's placement doesn't make much sense, personally, I would keep something like that well inside the structure.

I think it is the ship's scrotum.

You're putting all the wrong images in my head.

Brb bleaching.

It's a giant astrodroid.

Bingowings said:

It's a giant astrodroid.

I'm just going to roll with this. The kaiju equivalent of R2-D2.

Yeah but he beeps real loud.

timdiggerm said:Yeah, everything I've ever seen about what's what on an ISD has said that's part of the reactor.

I seem to remember at least one video game (X-wing? Rebel Assault?) where that was a sheild generator. You had the two balls for the bridge, and that for the underbelly.

Solar refers to anything to do with our star (so presumably it is known to them despite being in another galaxy), Ionisation is the conversion of any atom into ions usually accomplished by removing an electron or two, and you know what a reactor is.

This techno-babble is bobbins.

It makes much more sense if it's a giant robot head.

That looks a bit suspect, what's it from?

I believe it's from a book I used to (or still may, somewhere) have called The Star Wars Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels--yes, the original, not the new.  As for being a solar ionization reactor, assuming a broader interpretation of solar meaning any sun, and based on something I remember reading years ago (so you can totally quote me on this), it's supposed to be a small, self-contained fusion reactor--esentially a small sun inside the vessel.  And fusion does indeed involved ionized gas, so....  Yes, it's techno-babble, but that is the reasoning, I'm confident.

Bingowings said:

Solar refers to anything to do with our star (so presumably it is known to them despite being in another galaxy), Ionisation is the conversion of any atom into ions usually accomplished by removing an electron or two, and you know what a reactor is.

This techno-babble is bobbins.

Yeah, keep Star Trek out of this thread please.

darth_ender said:

As for being a solar ionization reactor, assuming a broader interpretation of solar meaning any sun.

The term for any star is Stellar.

Solar means the sun and no other.

You are living on Sol 3 on the Western spiral arm of Mutters Spiral in the sixth Fylang Bottle universe. 

Not trying to argue over such a moot point because in most cases you are correct, even in your Hitchhiker's references. I know it's not worth arguing over such meaningless technobabble anyway, but what the heck.

There is a tendency to refer to stars with planets orbiting them as 'suns' on occasion. However, truly there is only one sun, and whether capitalized or in lower case, it is still only the star around which earth orbits. Similarly, the same has been done in reference to 'solar systems'.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/solar+system

Again, I want to emphasize that in it's truest meaning you are correct: the Solar System is specifically the star system with Sol, the sun, at its center. However in numerous laymen's lexicon, a solar system is any star system, and 'solar' is the adjectival description of any star with orbiting planets.

So what's my point? Well, it's that there are clearly little planets orbiting that fusion reactor inside all star destroyers!

Now can anyone tell me where I left my tachyon pulse generating hydrospanner? I seem to remember leaving it with my quantum fission inductor, but now it's not there.

Hitchikers Guide?

It's some round thing the model maker thought would look cool there. That's it.

TK-949 said:

It's some round thing the model maker thought would look cool there. That's it.

Look at all the glass shards! You broke the fourth wall. Nevertheless, I now consider that to be canon.